Fuel assemblies of the kind mentioned above are known, for example, from the U.S. Pat. No. 3,164,530 and the U.K. patent application No. 2,054,247 A.
With fuel asssemblies of this kind, it is necessary to ensure that sprinkling water is evenly supplied to all groups of fuel rods in the assembly upon an emergency cooling, even if the location of the fuel assembly in relation to the nozzles of the sprinkling system results in a considerable variation from group to group of the amount of sprinkling water supplied directly from the nozzles.
A fuel assembly according to the invention is particularly advantageous in such cases where a fuel assembly of the design described in the introduction, that is, a fuel assembly with a plurality of subassemblies or groups, is used in a reactor having a sprinkling system for emergency cooling of the core is constructed fuel assemblies not divided into subassemblies.